DonationCoder.com Forum
Main Area and Open Discussion => Living Room => Topic started by: Josh on March 07, 2010, 03:26 AM
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This thread is dedicated to that old piece of hardware or software that despite being problematic, a pain in your rear, and just plain buggy, was probably your most cherished friend
For me, I will always remember...
The Voodoo2 Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo2)
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I'll have to say... the turbo switch and the hardware keyboard lock.
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Turbo! Go from 4.4mhz to 11mhz with the push of a button!
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I'll have to say... the turbo switch and the hardware keyboard lock. (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=21995.msg197596#msg197596))
-scancode
Yes! I used to have a keyboard with a turbo key, and turbo+F11 was awesome! Locked the keyboard so you could do a good job cleaning it without shutting the computer down.
I also miss McAfee Office 2000, but only for 2 things: Crash Protector and Nuts & Bolts.
Crash Protector added an extra button to the poor excuse of a "task manager" in Win98: a "reactivate" button to kick a not responding program back from the dead so you can save your work and exit nicely.
Nuts & Bolts had the best defragger I have ever used. It was lightning fast and quite thorough, unless you chose the option to 0 the free space, which then it was just thorough. I really wish they would have continued the development of that. I really miss it.
A couple more things I miss:
Crystalport browser: that was the power users browser, with tabs and popup blocker, long before other browsers had them. And it had a few unique features I haven't seen in any other browser yet, like channels, which created subtabs to a main tab, that could load all the bookmarks of a particular category under a single tab. And AppCapture, which allowed you to run any Windows application in a tab.
Big Fix, back in the days when Tucows was THE place to get software. It was as close as you would ever get to a package manager for Windows, watching your OS and installed software, comparing your installed patches to what Microsoft had available and letting you know immediately when anything new was released, with a much better explanation of what the patch was for than Microsoft supplied to end users. It also made sure your antivirus was always up to date, back in the days when you had to manually download and update the dat files, yourself. And if a newer version of any of your installed software popped up on the Tucows site, you were immediately informed about it and could download & install it through the Big Fix application. You could even browse the Tucows site through it and select more software to install, while you were waiting for the huge update files from Microsoft to download on your dialup connection. If your PC manufacturer had a contract with the Big Fix company, you even got driver updates. It also reminded you to do things like defrag, clean out your temp folder, scan for viruses, and even made some suggestions for settings changes to make your pc a little more secure, like not hiding files and folders, and known file extensions, and opening certain file types in notepad by default (.js and .vbs). And all of this in a freeware app!
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This thread is dedicated to that old piece of hardware or software that despite being problematic, a pain in your rear, and just plain buggy, was probably your most cherished friend
For me, I will always remember...
The Voodoo2 Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo2)
-Josh
I still have my Voodoo2 cards in my parts bins (I ran an SLI setup back in the day). :D
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I still have my old Voodoo 1 here I bought for MDK 1 and UltraHLE :(
A really cool thing was my Video Backup-System that made it possible to save Gigabytes to video-tapes at a time where you only could buy harddiscs with only a few megabytes. Technical infos are here (http://www.hugolyppens.com/VBS.html).
[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb][attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb][attachthumb=#3][/attachthumb]
Later this job was done by a more flexible Zip-Drive [attachthumb=#4][/attachthumb]
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Ah the Zip drive... I still have a perfectly functioning drive with about ten 100 and 250 MB disks. I bought the drive because I got fed up of CD-RWs flaking out on me. It's funny now - the media was so expensive relative to its capacity (especially when compared with CD-R/W's) and it was so quickly superseded, first by external 2.5" USB harddrives and then by USB thumbdrives. At the time (2000), I thought they were to coolest thing, though.
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Ah the Zip drive... I still have a perfectly functioning drive with about ten 100 and 250 MB disks. I bought the drive because I got fed up of CD-RWs flaking out on me. It's funny now - the media was so expensive relative to its capacity (especially when compared with CD-R/W's) and it was so quickly superseded, first by external 2.5" USB harddrives and then by USB thumbdrives. At the time (2000), I thought they were to coolest thing, though.
-Darwin
Ah, I thought I'd have nothing to contribute here having only started using PC's in 1999, but I had zip drives :D
- first a real blocky one - there were only 100MB disks then (that's all I had anyways) - I'm sure it wasnt able to read the 250MB disk when they came out, so I got that one showing in Crush's pic.
I loved the sound they made as you ejected them !
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HP Laserjet 4. Paid $1400 for it in 1993(?) [can't remember]. Kept it more than 14 years. It weighed a short ton, but got me through two graduate degrees! Replaced it with a $30 inkjet.
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Borlands's Sidekick (and later on Sidekick Plus) The Granddaddy of all TSR applications. Combined with an AST Rampage! card and you were one smokin' cool Power User. ;D
Faked multitasking from back in the days of DOS. "When men were real men; women were real women; and those little fuzzy creatures from Sirius were real little fuzzy creatures from Sirius."
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Once you got used to using Sidekick it was hard to work on a machine that didn't have it. State of the Art - back in the 80s! :P
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The computers i cut my teeth on, fond memories of them all (stock images):
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cromemco z-2d (no graphics, cp/m based)
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trs-80 (saved files to cassette player)
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radio shack color computer (chicklet keyboard, color graphics!!)
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the original ibm pc -- pre-ordered and picked up at computerworld(?) on release day; a joy.
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I really tried to like this one.
Sharp manufactured the Newton for Apple.
This variant, marketed under the Sharp name, struck me as a better design.
It had a hard lid that hinged shut to cover the screen.
Roughly the size and weight of a hefty paper-back book.
It could recognize cursive writing (not well enough).
Mine ran through batteries faster than I could buy them 4 x AA (or was it AAA?)
Rechargeable batteries weren't much good in those days.
Must have been in the first half of the '90's.
I was sorely disappointed when work on these was abandoned. I had hoped that the next generation would reveal some real winners.
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Sharp Expert Pad
Also, +1 for the LJ4 (the last of mine died only a year or so ago) and +1 for Sidekick.
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A really cool thing was my Video Backup-System that made it possible to save Gigabytes to video-tapes at a time where you only could buy harddiscs with only a few megabytes.-Crush
Oh yes! A must-have order I gave my wife when she went to the UK in 1993, "Go to the manufacturer and buy this gizmo thanks!"
It got replaced with a HP 5.25" SCSI DAT unit that a mate got for nothing - a LOT faster.
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Software: QEMM386 & DesqView! QEMM provided the memory management for my DOS games & DesqView provided the multi-tasking for my DOS apps.
Hardware: I cringe when I see people referring to the HP LJ4 as antiquated. I have an HP LaserJet 5, which is a slightly updated hardware version of the LJ4, which I bought off of eBay a couple years ago that had only had 2,500 pages printed on it. Patiently watching eBay like a hawk netted me the RAM to max out the printer, the PostScript chip, the 250 page extra paper tray, the duplexer, *and* the 10/100 managed network card with a built-in web server to control the printer! And I got all of these items for a pittance.
What did it all get me? It got me a printer that's built better than any printer made today, full controls on the printer with an LED screen, network & PostScript capable, and the toner cartridges are dirt cheap price-per-page compared to modern printers.
Another priceless bonus: no-nonsense full-featured drivers that just work without all the goofy upselling modern printer drivers do trying to get you to buy consumables and accessories.
No, I'll be keeping my LaserJet 5 MP printer till they quit making toner cartridges for it.
(Though for color and printing on CDs/DVDs I do have a nice Epson, but it's hardly used as I mostly print text.)
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Software: QEMM386 & DesqView! QEMM provided the memory management for my DOS games & DesqView provided the multi-tasking for my DOS apps.-Innuendo
+1
Patiently watching eBay like a hawk netted me the RAM to max out the printer
Didn't you set up some saved searches?
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I still use a DOS phonelist/dialer (HotLine), and run SuperKey with the same key definitions I was using in the 80's.
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Borlands's Sidekick (and later on Sidekick Plus) The Granddaddy of all TSR applications. Combined with an AST Rampage! card and you were one smokin' cool Power User. ;D
-40hz
WOw - great thread.
I had completely forgotten about Sidekick (and SK+) - they were awesome in their day.
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My first ' portable " computer. The Radio Shack TRS 80 Pocket Computer ( about 1981)
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All those great old computer magazines:
Byte
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Probably the finest general computer technology magazine ever published. And still sadly missed by many of us who are old enough to remember it.
Transactor :-*
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This was a personal favorite of mine. The bible of the Commodore 64 crowd. I used to pore over this mag from cover to cover way back when.
There's an online partial archive of back issues at the following link. Check it out if you're a C64 fan. Maybe even give it a skim if you're not..
http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/
Kilobaud Microcomputing
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Another classic that deserved better.
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40hz, you forgot a few, Creative Computing was one of my favorites, although we also LOVED Byte, and DrDobbs.
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Check out the Classic Computer Magazine Archive (http://www.atarimagazines.com/).
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Creative Computing was amazing. I remember an article that had a program which could be used as a framework for generating the code for standalone business programs. That was the first time I had ever seen a "template driven application generator" as they later came to be called. Those were eventually replaced by today's more flexible frameworks, but back then appgens were bleeding edge.
And to think they were doing stuff like this on floppies and 64K of RAM. 8)
Addendum:
But I'm surprised you didn't mention 80Microcomputing seeing as you were a fellow "Trash-80" user from way back.
My sister started her business with a dual floppy TRS-80 Model III (later upgraded with an "amber" monitor and LDOS), Visicalc, Super Scripsit (WP), plus the TRS-80 accounting suite. (And also a copy of Zork if memory serves. :mrgreen:)
This was the TRS-80 crowd's answer to Transactor:
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Didn't you set up some saved searches?-rjbull
No, there was no way to set up saved searches when I was buying this stuff. I forgot to mention in my original post that the duplexer, extra paper tray, and the network card were all brand-new in never-opened boxes when I bought them. Nearly bought the letter feeder at the time, but common sense prevailed at the last minute as I'd have had no use for that. :)
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Nuts & Bolts had the best defragger I have ever used. It was lightning fast and quite thorough, unless you chose the option to 0 the free space, which then it was just thorough. I really wish they would have continued the development of that. I really miss it.-app103
Amen to that! - it did some pretty hefty pre-planning, which enabled it to be very smart about how it moved data around... it defragged properly, and it did it fast. Dunno if it's possible to do it this well today; will probably require an offline filesystem defrag at any rate.
Faked multitasking from back in the days of DOS. "When men were real men; women were real women; and those little fuzzy creatures from Sirius were real little fuzzy creatures from Sirius."-40hz
...and 16-year-old girls weren't FBI agents.
A couple of my favorite old pieces of hardware have to be the Commodore C=64:
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This is where I whetted my teth on Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, Commando, Last Ninja and whatnot. From the times where I didn't even know you could buy games, since none of the stores around where I lived had any.
And the Commodore Amiga 600:
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Which was a real gaming beast, with great graphics and sound. Cannon Fodder, Gods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_%28video_game%29), superfrog, prince of persia, persian gulf inferno (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_Inferno) :-*, Another World (aka. Out Of This World), flashback, Hunter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_%28video_game%29) and a LOT more. Lots of fond memories!
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...and 16-year-old girls weren't FBI agents.
-f0dder
ROFLMAO! (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/5Large/TFR1E0.gif)
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"Memory, turn your face to the moonlight..."
For me, the fondest memories are of the Beagle Bros.
Top quality software,
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Programming tips right there in the advertisements,
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Foolproof disk care advice,
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and that inimitable programming humor.
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Aw, crap. Now I gotta go download an Apple ][ emulator... :-[
Images courtesy of the Beagle Bros Online Museum (http://stevenf.com/beagle/) and the Beagle Bros Software Repository (http://beagle.applearchives.com/).
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How many of us cut our baby teeth on one (or both) of these two classic development tools?
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ] TurboPascal - long before C or Visual-anything, this was the go-to language for developing "real" PC apps.
Or at least it was if you didn't want to be writing them in Assembly Language. ;D
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And for serious database applications, FoxPro (pre-Microsoft!) was the only choice if you wanted power and speed.
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I started programming using Turbo Pascal 6 - Borland's IDEs were lightyears ahead of the competition back then, and the compiler was pretty fast (faster than Borland C++). Also, a really cool feature was "build-to-memory", which was great during run-debug-modify development cycles, since harddrives were PIO and amazingly slow back then. Integrated help was also very nice. The generated code was, as usual with Pascal/Delphi, relatively sucky, though... so you used "sally's peephole optimizer", customized runtime, and often had to resort to writing assembly snippets when you needed speed.
I also used Borland Pascal 7 (note the turbo->borland rename after v6), which unfortunately dropped the compile-to-memory functionality. Did a bit of 16bit DPMI programming, but found it too limiting - this is why I ended up switching to C++, and frankly I never looked back.
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and often had to resort to writing assembly snippets when you needed speed.
-f0dder
Too true! :Thmbsup: I should have said "...if you didn't want to be writing them entirely in Assembly Language.
BTW: Is Sally's peephole optimizer the same thing as something I knew as Sally TPU? That came after I stopped doing anything with Turbo. I think 4 or 5 was the last version I used. (It was whichever was the first one to have the 'blue' background.) But I remember how some friends used to rave about it.
After TurboPascal I went to Topspeed Modula2 and from there to Clarion Professional Developer before I mostly stopped coding and got into network and infrastructure projects.
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Yep, it is (http://www.programmersheaven.com/download/4139/download.aspx) :)
It was a pretty interesting program, especially for it's time - there wasn't nearly as much stuff (freely) available on compiler optimization, and Borland's TPU library format wasn't officially documented... SPO actually optimized the intermediate code in TPU files (which would then be linked to .exes), it wasn't just a "unit full of optimized functions".
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TurboPascal - long before C or Visual-anything
-40hz
I'd been looking at Microsoft Pascal that cost around $400 at the time, I believe.
Then Phillipe Kahn came along with Turbo Pascal and I'm pretty sure I paid $69 for it!!
Turbo Pascal and Sidekick :o
btw, I think this thread is misnamed, it ought to be
In remembrance of....The antiquated hardware/software users' reminiscence thread.
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SPO actually optimized the intermediate code in TPU files
-f0dder
@f0dder - Amazing. Can you imagine somebody doing something like that today? They'd get their butts sued off before they could hit the save key on their compiler. How times have changed...
@crainioscopical - I think that 'rename' suggestion of yours sounds about right even if none of us have been banned. Yet. ;D
@Edvard - Beagle Brothers! You da man!!! What a freekin' absolutely cool company they were. And thanks for that link to their Online Museum website. I forgot how funny these people were with their documentation. That link to Uncle Louie's Q&A column is priceless!
Q. Dear Uncle Louie -- There seems to be nothing of substance in your column. My question is, "Where's the BEEF?"
A. $BEEF is located at address 48879.
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I'd been looking at Microsoft Pascal that cost around $400 at the time, I believe.
Then Phillipe Kahn came along with Turbo Pascal and I'm pretty sure I paid $69 for it!!
-cranioscopical
In my first real job we had a program written in Microsoft Pascal (on CP/M if I remember right) that crunched some numbers and required running overnight. As you might imagine, it wasn't uncommon for something to go wrong and essentially a day's work had to be put off until the job could be run again.
When Turbo Pascal came out, we bought a copy (for some reason $50 sticks in my mind, but maybe it was a bit more), spent a few hours porting the program and the damn thing ran in under 10 minutes.
It was *un*believable. It has to still be the biggest bang-for-buck spent for software in my experience.
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Then Phillipe Kahn came along with Turbo Pascal and I'm pretty sure I paid $69 for it!!-cranioscopical
That sounds almost as if Philippe wrote it - whereas Turbo Pascal was actually written by the (Danish :)) [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg]Anders Hejlsberg[/url] (yes, the guy who went on to create C#).
SPO actually optimized the intermediate code in TPU files-f0dder
@f0dder - Amazing. Can you imagine somebody doing something like that today? They'd get their butts sued off before they could hit the save key on their compiler. How times have changed...-40hz
Oh, I don't really think so - you're working at the .obj level, not modifying the compiler. A friend of mine has a software protection product that works on the .obj level :)
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I can still remember my first steps into Assembler-coding with SMon: [attach=#1][/attach]
The only help I had was a listing of the floppy-rom with some comments. I had no idea what all these instructions could do and flags are used for. I learned each command by trying and observing the results. After loading some code I found new ones to explore. A very funny and exciting time.
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That sounds almost as if Philippe wrote it - whereas Turbo Pascal was actually written by the (Danish :)) [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg]Anders Hejlsberg[/url] (yes, the guy who went on to create C#).
-f0dder
I certainly meant to unleash no disrespect for great Danes! :o
Effective marketing is an important factor, however.
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That sounds almost as if Philippe wrote it - whereas Turbo Pascal was actually written by the (Danish :)) [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg]Anders Hejlsberg[/url] (yes, the guy who went on to create C#).
-f0dder
I certainly meant to unleash no disrespect for great Danes! :o-cranioscopical
You better not - woof woof! ;)
Effective marketing is an important factor, however.-cranioscopical
Yup, that's definitely true.
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Fidonet. (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/5Large/bouncegrin.gif)
Truly amazing moment in pre-web history. Those of us who were lucky enough to be "node" member sysops still look back with fondness to a piece of homebrew technology that basically brought the whole notion of the need for expensive corporate e-mail solutions (MCI Mail et al) into question.
If you're enjoying free and virtually unrestricted e-mail access (along with unlimited spam and e-mail based malware threats :mrgreen:) you can thank Fidonet for making many people aware that there were cheap workable alternatives available.
Good article here:
http://wapedia.mobi/en/FidoNet
And a slightly sleepy-paced 45 minute BBC documentary segment on Fidonet here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3145680396796021272#
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Fidonet
Those of us who were lucky enough to be "node" member sysops still look back with fondness
-40hz
I was a "point" for years, and had to drag myself reluctantly into the Internet age when my last boss disappeared :(
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What about the old LaserJet series II even older than the LaserJet 4 - still in regluar use and just been rebuilt.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/s720x720/538765_452607438115694_733543567_n.jpg)
And also the more recent LaserJet 4300DTN and Color LaserJet 4600DTN
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s720x720/558723_452901981419573_2064944093_n.jpg)
LaserJet P3005DN
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/304306_452365351473236_560131265_n.jpg)
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HP Laserjet 4. Paid $1400 for it in 1993(?) [can't remember]. Kept it more than 14 years. It weighed a short ton, but got me through two graduate degrees! Replaced it with a $30 inkjet.
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=21995.msg197630#msg197630))
-zridling
Nothing wrong with the LaserJet 4, all they need is service and they be right for another 20 years :)
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Nothing wrong with the LaserJet 4, all they need is service and they be right for another 20 years :)
-woodss
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+1! I only retired my Laserjet III (with $$$ Postscript cartridge option!) when it finally got to be too much of a hassle to get toner for it locally.
I gave it away - and last I heard (about two years ago) it was still going strong.
Thing was built like a boat anchor for a navy destroyer. If it ever ends up in a landfill, it will probably still be recognizable for at least a thousand years.
:Thmbsup:
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Here's how I paid tribute to one of my favorite technological toys from the 1970s: The 2XL "Robot" (https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/2XL/index.html).
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Later this job was done by a more flexible Zip-Drive
-Crush
I still have a Zip drive, but the Jaz drive was the one that revolutionized it for me. I still hate that none of my machines have SCSI now. In terms of video cards, the Rendition Verite was so cool.
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RIP iPhone 4S. :'( Recently made obsolete and antiquated by the announcement of the iPhone 5.
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;) :P
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In 1000 years when aliens visit this wasteland the LaserJet will work with their power source yet they will find historical records of some things starting with i for some unknown reason
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In 1000 years when aliens visit this wasteland the LaserJet will work with their power source yet they will find historical records of some things starting with i for some unknown reason
-rgdot
And even though there are no longer any humans, the replacement toner cartridges will still be ridiculously expensive. ;D
(Shortly after landing, an ALB (autonomous legal bot*) will impound their ship and serve them with papers which claim ALL their advanced technology infringes on one or more of over 100 trillion registered patents belonging to entities with odd sounding names like: Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and Amazon.)
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*Note: The automated legal system of the human race was specifically designed to outlast its creators and "function perfectly" without the need for any human interaction.
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Turbo! Go from 4.4mhz to 11mhz with the push of a button!
-Josh
4.4 to 11?? That's not fair! Mine only toggled 4.77<=>7.15 Mhz :)
The switch was on this beast:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/LeadingEdgeModelD.jpg/220px-LeadingEdgeModelD.jpg)
It came with 12" yellow monochrome monitor and Hercules Graphics. The graphics had 256KB of ram while the system came with 512KB main memory. I changed the monochrome monitor to EGA. I upgraded the ram to 640KB then ran an Expanded Memory TSR (probably from PC Magazine) to "borrow" the graphics card ram unused when the card was in character mode.
If the first system I had was fast to start with I probably would never have bothered with assembler. Funny but since most everyone just had Dos back then, I could actually accomplish quite a bit on such a hobbled system. But forget about writing device drivers without even a break-out switch. :)
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I started programming using Turbo Pascal 6
...
-f0dder
I learned Pascal on Turbo Pascal 3.0. Back then it still spit out .com files, not .exe. By then I was already into QB 3.0 and MASM. The Turbo stuff was more fun though. The magazines covering Turbo languages didn't take themselves so seriously. I enjoyed the stuff written by Jeff Duntemann (http://www.duntemann.com/) quite a bit. He wrote with humor while still imparting the technical knowledge. Not easy to do.
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@Josh -
;D ;D ;D ROTFLMAO!!! ;D ;D ;D
It's been a bloody crazy day. Thanks for making me laugh. :Thmbsup: